Minhocão (São Paulo)

About

The Minhocão, officially "Via Elevada Presidente João Goulart", is a 3.5-kilometre (2.2-mile) elevated highway in São Paulo, Brazil. The highway was inaugurated in 1971 as Elevado Presidente Costa e Silva; its name was changed in 2016 after a law was passed changing names of all streets honoring people involved with the Brazilian military dictatorship. The road is named after the minhocão, a quasi-fictitious earthworm-like creature. The highway is closed to car traffic between 20:00 and 07:00 on weekdays and all day on Saturdays/Sundays, allowing dedicated use by pedestrians and cyclists. Local urban planners have long advocated tearing down the road in order to promote urban renewal. In February 2019, Mayor Bruno Covas announced that a 900-meter section of the freeway's eastern end would be permanently closed to auto traffic and converted to “Parque Minhocão”, an elevated linear park.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.